Aug 30 (Reuters) - Trade ministers from about 36 countries are meeting in Delhi this week to give new impetus to the Doha round of trade talks. [ID:nLS229165]
The Delhi meeting is not intended to focus on negotiations on specific topics but will concentrate on working on a timetable for the talks.
But ministers are likely to try to tackle some of the substance among themselves in smaller groups. The following describes the main issues out of the dozens of contentious topics in the talks:
CORE ISSUES
At the centre of the talks are efforts to open up trade in agriculture and industrial goods.
A deal is likely to involve rich countries opening up their protected markets for farm produce and cutting heavy subsidies for agricultural goods that squeeze farmers in poor countries out of the market.
In return the richer developing countries will cut industrial tariffs, opening up their markets for industrial goods to businesses in both rich and poor countries.
FLEXIBILITIES
The difficulty comes in the exceptions to these cuts, known as flexibilities.
Developing countries led by Brazil say that rich nations are using these exceptions to protect farmers and prevent any competition in politically sensitive produce.
As a result, what they see as the main aim of the Doha talks -- the elimination of an unfair agricultural trading system that favours developed countries -- will not be delivered.
Rich countries on the other hand say that developing countries may take advantage of flexibilities to shield some sectors such as cars almost entirely from any new competition.
The United States, for example, says it cannot improve its offer on agriculture until it has a better idea how the big emerging countries such as Brazil, China and India will use their flexibilities.
STICKING POINTS
A meeting of ministers in July last year to seek a breakthrough in the Doha talks collapsed over two issues in particular.
-- Special safeguard mechanism. This is an agreement that would allow developing countries to raise agricultural tariffs temporarily to help their farmers cope with a sudden flood of imports.
While the principle is accepted, there are big differences over the way it would work.
The United States, backed by some developing country food exporters such as Uruguay and Costa Rica, argued the safeguard must not be used to choke off the normal growth in trade, and that tariffs must not rise above "pre-Doha" levels.
India and other big countries such as Indonesia said they needed a quick and powerful safeguard to protect their millions of subsistence farmers from the unforeseen impact of market opening, even if that meant big rises in tariffs.
-- Sectoral deals. The United States is pushing for agreements that would go beyond any general cut in industrial tariffs to eliminate duties altogether in some sectors, such as chemicals or electronic goods.
Such deals would not apply to everyone but would be negotiated with groups of key players in those sectors. Given the use of flexibilities (see above), Washington sees sector deals as the best way of creating new market opportunities.
Several rich and developing countries also favour them.
Big emerging countries such as China and India, whose participation would be essential for any deal to be viable, say they are resisting efforts to strongarm them into sector deals, which they insist must be purely voluntary.
-- Cotton. The meeting in July last year never got as far as discussing cotton, the issue which is seen as a touchstone of efforts to create a fairer global trading system.
African countries want the United States to make bigger cuts in its cotton subsidies than in other agricultural products. They say that U.S. cotton subsidies make it uneconomic for their farmers to produce, and they cannot afford similar state aid.
U.S. officials have hinted that they will do something on cotton but say they cannot make an offer until they can see the overall deal in agriculture. More recently they have argued that China and India must also open their markets to U.S. cotton. (Compiled by Jonathan Lynn)